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Growth of RIM in the mobile communication market

By Annphilip

| February 20th 2012 | Views:

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Whenever we hear about BlackBerry devices the primary thing that comes into our mind is Research in Motion Ltd., the company that is manufacturing mobile communication devices. Research in Motion or RIM had a modest beginning. But now it is one of the world’s leading producers of mobile communication devices. In the mobile communication market, Research in Motion has built a strong platform for designing, manufacturing and marketing mobile devices.

A travel through the history of RIM -

Rim was founded by Waterloo engineering student Mike Lazaridis and University of Windsor engineering student Douglas Fregin. With the support of loans from friends and family, they started the company in 1984. Today, Mike Lazaridis is the president and Co-CEO of RIM and Douglas Fregin is the Vice President, Operations. The company got its first contract from General Motors of Canada Ltd. for industrial automation. It was this contract that helped the company to survive for several years. Towards the end of 1980s RIM had about $1 million in sales and a dozen of employees.

By that time the company becomes the first wireless data technology developer in North America. It’s the first company outside Scandinavia to develop connectivity products for Mobitex wireless Packet switched data communications networks. During that time RIM received a contract from Rogers Cantel Mobile Communications, Inc., a paging and cellular telephone operator. Rogers Cantel Mobile was a subsidiary of Rogers Communications Inc. According to the contract, RIM has to investigate the potential of newer wireless digital network systems being developed by Sweden's LM Ericsson. In parallel to it, the company started manufacturing tiny wireless radio modems. By the mid of 1990s these modems were used by original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, in products like computers and vending machines.

RIM developed software to support wireless e-mail system in 1991, as part of a three-way partnership with Ericsson GE Mobile Data Inc. and Anterior Technology. Later RIM introduced its first portable radio modem for Hewlett-Packard Co.'s palmtop computer. When Anterior Technology provided a gateway to major e-mail systems, RIM provided the application programming interface, or API.

One of the products that became popular by the end of 1990s is the Inter@ctive pager. RIM developed the pager along with Intel Corporation. The pager featured a QWERTY keyboard and a small, text-only display screen that showed four lines of text. It also included a 16-bit operating system along with built-in contact manager, scheduler, and forms-based messaging applications. Some of the companies with which RIM signed a supply contract include IBM, Panasonic Corp., Mobile Integrated Technologies and Telxon Corp.

By getting good contracts, the company attained financial stability. In the year 1998, RIM reported revenue of $21 million and net income of $400 thousand. RIM completed its initial public offering during fiscal 1998. During that time RIM had C$100 million worth of backlogged orders and C$109 million of cash and short-term investments.

It was the introduction of the BlackBerry mobile e-mail solution that changed RIM’s fate. In the initial stages the service for RIMS’s wearable wireless handheld device were provided by Bellsouth’s wireless network in the United States and Cantel AT&T wireless data network in Canada. In 2000, RIM’s blackberry received good reviews and was named the product of the year by InfoWorld. Because the device is easy to handle and we can access e-mail messages in a timely manner. As there is high demand for wireless devices, RIM still continued its trend of announcing new and enhanced wireless devices and services every now and then. As internet with service from providers like Xfinity Internet can give us information about RIM’s latest products and its features, we don’t have to go anywhere to know the latest developments.

Annphilip - About Author:
As a freelancer, Ann is interested in writing about different companies, their products and services. She collects information about the companies from her home internet connected to Time Warner Phone.